And Night Descends (The Third Book of the Small Gods Series) (14 page)

“I suppose I might be wrong, but the timing works out too well, don’t it?”

He glanced back at Trenan as though he expected the master swordsman to reply. He didn’t; he merely met the soldier’s look with a glare.

“Seems to me just the right number of seasons passed after that night before the queen gave Erral what he thought his first child. Was surprised the whelp came out with both arms, weren’t you?”

“You speak treason,” Trenan growled. Blood throbbed in his veins as though threatening to boil. “Forget the tongue in your head, that wretched skull deserves to come off your spine.”

Dansil’s smile faded, his face went stony. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You don’t know who I might’ve told your secret to. You don’t know if I told ‘em to spread your secret in the event I don’t return from our little foray in search of the royal pains-in-the-ass, do you?”

Trenan recalled seeing Dansil and Strylor sharing hushed words on several occasions, one or the other of them glancing toward him, the conversation stopping when he approached. The opportunity to tell the other man had been there, but had he done so? The swordmaster struggled to remember if Strylor acted differently after any of those hushed exchanges, but he hadn’t been watching for it so he couldn’t recall; he’d carried an edge of the defiance Dansil displayed right from the start.

“Wonderin’ if I’m telling the truth? No way to be sure, I guess.”

Trenan released his grip on the sword’s hilt and reclaimed his hold on the reins. The queen’s guard was most likely lying, but he couldn’t take the chance to find out. Trenan didn’t care what happened to him; since the moment the axe had separated his arm from his body, he’d made peace with death—wished for it at times—but he couldn’t let anything happen that may make things difficult for Ishla.

“You’ll behave yourself with me or others’ll be finding out about you fucking the queen, understand?”

Trenan didn’t reply but continued to glare at his companion. Dansil clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook his head.

“You’re so desperate to find the girl. Is she yours, too?”

“The king’s children are the king’s children.”

“So says you.” Dansil laughed and put his heels to his horse, urging the animal to pull farther ahead.

Trenan stared after the queen’s guard, letting the gap between them increase. He pursed his lips, wishing to yank Godsbane from its sheath and skewer the bastard on its sharp blade, then leave him bleeding at the side of the path for the crows to feast on his eyes and his innards. But, for the moment, the risk to Ishla was too great. Eventually, though, Trenan would find out if the big soldier’s threat held any truth.

And when he did, Dansil would die.

XIV Danya—Out of the City

Danya held her breath and peered through the tiny space between the edge of the canvas and the wooden side of the wain. The multi-colored stacks of fabrics pressing around her made her sweat beneath her armor, but at least she’d been able to shed the thick, red robe. It served its purpose by keeping people away, but it also overheated her and left a rash on her neck where the scratchy material rubbed against her skin.

Although Evalal lay within arm’s reach, the wain’s cargo silenced any sound she made, leaving Danya in a muted world of creaking boards, rumbling wheels, and a sliver of the world going by. Despite stale air and oppressive heat, getting out of the city and moving toward her goal gave her a measure of comfort.

Even if she was unsure what the goal was or where to find it.

In her heart, she wanted to find her brother. Despite the overwhelming evidence suggesting he may no longer be of this world, she was convinced that if it were true, she’d sense it. They’d always shared a connection she didn’t have with anyone else, including their mother. Could the connection have failed her, leaving her to guess her brother’s fate at the time she most needed to know it?

She refused to believe it. No sense of danger or despair must mean he remained alive and well.

But where?

He might still be in the city. Or maybe his injuries weren’t as grievous as they’d suspected and he’d left, continuing his quest to fulfill the parchment’s prophecy.

The firstborn child of the rightful king.

Teryk claimed the title of firstborn child, but was their father the rightful king? He’d taken the throne by force, so the scroll might refer to someone else. Perhaps they weren’t the ones intended to find it. If they’d retrieved it before the intended found it, doing so not only meant they’d put themselves in danger, but the entire world, too.

No, that didn’t seem right. She didn’t believe things happened without reason. Everyone controls their fates to a degree, within limits. And what of the Mother of Death? She’d been unshakable in her conviction the seed of life required the princess to carry it, and hadn’t she rescued it from the cursed garden?

Danya shifted, moving her hand to the pouch tied to her sword belt. She caressed the seed’s smooth hardness through the soft doeskin, imagined its color—so dark it appeared black. But it wasn’t, for she’d seen many colors hidden in its shell as she’d lain in her bed, staring at it. Out of the darkness, red had whirled across its surface before it darkened again, then blue, or green. Every color had appeared on its lustrous surface. At first, she’d assumed them reflections, but she’d seen purples and oranges, though nothing in her chamber bore those hues. As her fingers rested on the seed, she wondered what color it might be in the blackness within the pouch.

The princess breathed a sigh of stale air and returned her attention to the sliver of the world visible between tarp and wain. During her distraction, a shadow had fallen across it, so she wiggled closer for a better view.

A rider kept pace beside the merchant’s wagon, only the horse’s rippling muscles visible at first. Then sunlight flashed on metal—armor. Upon seeing it, Danya heard the clank of plate, the muted jingle of mail. Her breath caught in her throat; could they be there because of her? Had she been discovered?

She waited, holding her body rigid without removing her gaze from the armored man. After a half-dozen heartbeats that dragged on much longer, the rider pulled away, passing the merchant and allowing the sun to shine through the gap. She freed her breath, let her tensed muscles relax, when another shadow blocked the light, another rider.

At first, she saw nothing. The sudden shifts from shade to sun and back left her eyes reeling and unable to discern more than a shape. When her vision adjusted, she stared out at the missing arm of a man she knew too well.

Trenan.

Part of her fell into a panic at being found, but welcome relief flooded another part. Her entire life, the master swordsman taught her, supported her, was more of a father to her than the king had time to be. She fought the urge to call out, to throw aside her coverings and reveal herself. Trenan had made it clear he was her father’s man, not hers and Teryk’s. If he found her, he’d make her go back. What would become of Teryk and his prophecy then?

The sword master’s shadow lingered on the side of the wain and Danya envisioned him throwing back the tarp and the cloth hiding her, calling out for his companion. They’d not only force her return to Draekfarren, they’d likely execute Evalal for aiding her, the same way she’d seen them end the life of the old woman.

What did she do?

Anger stirred in Danya’s gut as she stared at Trenan’s side—the only part of him visible to her.

Why did he let it happen?

The ire and disappointment quashed any urge to reach out to her mentor. She suddenly felt she didn’t recognize the man riding beside her. The princess’ eyes narrowed to slits and she wished for the master swordsman to pass her by. As if he’d read her thoughts, Trenan put heels to horse and hurried on after his companion. The rage gripping Danya didn’t leave with him.

***

Darkness fell, as it often does.

Danya hung back from the others as Evalal slipped a coin into the cloth merchant’s hand, one to match the one she’d given him when they first found their way onto his wain. The man nodded his thanks, spoke words the princess didn’t hear. Evalal shook her head and then appeared to thank him before offering a shallow bow and returning to the princess.

Like Danya, Evalal had shed her green smock. The younger girl had explained that people held differing opinions of the Goddess and her worshippers, that not everyone held them in esteem. Without mask or vestment, her companion’s youthful appearance surprised Danya—slender and unshapely like a boy, but with the face of a girl.

“He has enough coin to keep him quiet for a while,” she said as she came to stand beside her companion.

“More coin will loosen his lips, though.”

“True, but he’ll only be able to say he saw us, not where we went. And he’ll less likely say anything, given he aided us. What’s the punishment for aiding the royal daughter to flee her home?”

Danya thought of the woman in the square again, her stomach clenching at the memory of the big soldier’s axe falling on her neck. “It would cost him his life.”

“An item more valuable to him than a few more coins.”

The princess swallowed hard to ease her clenched throat and belly, but the stubborn knots in both remained. She didn’t understand how the man who raised her let an old woman be put to death, no matter the reason.

“Where do we go now?” she asked.

Evalal shrugged. “The seed will lead us.”

Danya narrowed her eyes. “How can a seed—?”

“I’m not sure, but it will.”

Danya nodded. “We stay here tonight.” She tilted her head toward the inn where the last of the merchants went in through the heavy door. “But I don’t know where to go come sunrise.”

“You will. The Mother of Death said to trust the seed. And you.”

A shiver tremored along Danya’s spine, shaking the obstructions from her throat and gut. Not many sunrises ago, she’d been a princess living in a castle, looking for adventure where none existed. Now, unexpectedly, she found herself an adventurer, but she wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t rather be a princess safe behind guards and stone walls.

She and Evalal started toward the inn, the weight of the seed of life in its pouch bouncing against her thigh.

***

A few of the stars some referred to as Small Gods still twinkled in the sky as Danya and Evalal left the inn. They’d paid for their stay the night before to keep being slowed down in the morn, but they weren’t the only ones making an early start; the weapons merchants were already sorting through their wares, blades and armor clanking in the back of their wagon.

Danya glanced sideways at them as she and Evalal passed. The merchants formed an odd team: one tall and slight, the other a monster of a man—wide and stout with thick arms and legs and a thicker-still chest. They checked through the wagon, counting their wares, checking none went astray overnight, though Danya thought she’d seen the bigger fellow sleeping near their goods.

As their feet carried them beyond the tandem, the taller, skinnier merchant raised his head and cast his gaze in their direction. For an instant, his eyes met Danya’s and his expression changed; the princess looked away abruptly, hoping the change did not indicate recognition.

“Is everything all right?” Evalal asked, resting her hand on Danya’s forearm.

“Fine,” she replied, looking first straight ahead, then up at the last of the fading stars.

The Small Gods of the prophecy?

A vision of the scroll floated into her mind. She pictured it clearly—the yellow of age curling the parchment at the corners, the dark lines of what should have been unfamiliar characters. Even in memory, she read it as if it lay on a table in front of her.

To raise the Small Gods, a Small God must die.

What did it mean? The light of the Small Gods died every morning with the rise of the sun, and they returned every time it set. Did the line refer to the passage of time? Possible, but she doubted it. Why write a prophecy speaking of the fall of mankind and bother to note sunrise and sunset? It made little sense; it meant more.

She narrowed her eyes as they walked, concentrating on select phrases in the stanzas.

A lock with no key. Man from across the sea. A barren mother, a living statue.

The words bordered on gibberish. All locks have keys; nothing but death lay across the sea; a mother couldn’t be barren; statues didn’t live. If not for the pouch hanging from her belt and the smooth, dark seed it contained, she might have written the entire thing off as fancy, a story made up to entertain someone’s child.

No denying the power emanating from within the seed, though. But what to do with it? Where would it take them? She wished she’d thought to ask more of the Mother of Death, but she’d not been alone with her again before they departed. It left her compelled to follow where it lead them.

Another line from the parchment floated to the surface of her mind:

The firstborn child of the rightful king.

Teryk.

Her heart ached for her brother and the urge to abandon their journey threatened to usurp the compulsion put upon her by the Mother of Death. She longed to search for him, hoped to find him alive, but she could no more guess where to begin seeking him than she knew where the seed would take them.

As she mourned Teryk, a final line of the prophecy came to her recollection:

When stars go out, the end is nigh.

Her gaze dropped to the ground to watch her footing as they made their way along the road to who-knew-where, but now she raised it again, directing her eyes skyward.

A washed-out shade of blue crept across the sky in the wake of dawn’s gray light. A sliver of panic found its way through her and Danya cast her gaze toward sunset where night still struggled against the rising sun. No pinpricks of light twinkled in the sky and her discomfort widened until she found one. It shone brighter than the others, bright enough to be seen as sunlight took over the world.